A freelance reporter wrote in the New York Times that President Trump can’t stop illegal immigration to the United States without first dealing with a factor that exacerbates the migration: global climate change.
“As our world heats up and sea levels rise, the problem of forced migration around the world is projected to become far worse.” says NYT Op-Ed Reporter Lauren Markham
In an opinion piece, Markham disagrees with the current framing of the illegal immigration debate, which she views as focused on economic strife being the chief reason that thousands are emigrating from their respective countries to the U.S. While acknowledging that economic opportunity is an incentive for illegal migrants, she states that environmental degradation is the catalyst that drives most of the current mass migration taking place.
“The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that since 2008, 22.5 million people have been displaced by climate-related or extreme weather events,” says Markham.
As a immigration reporter who frequently travels to Central America, Markham has followed and interviewed many migrants who were willing to risk a dangerous trek to the US just to leave their current circumstances. In her discussions with these migrants, they all expressed similar reasons for leaving, such as seasonal droughts that upended their farming business or frequent hurricanes that destroy basic infrastructure. These migrants see the correlation between environmental degradation and the exacerbation of existing societal tensions.
“El Salvador, one of the world’s most murderous countries, is just now recovering from a devastating drought, which only heightens the stakes and scope of the violence,” says Markham.
Markham perceives climate change as an issue that transcends borders. She criticizes Trump for viewing drought or rising temperatures as “problems in those countries, not ours”. In her view, the century long foreign intervention that the United States has had in these disaffected countries means that it shares some responsibility over those areas.
According to Markham, President Trump has two options to mitigate Illegal immigration, he can either enable an increasingly ineffective Environmental Protection Agency and minimize the issue of environmental degradation or he can focus his efforts to reduce the harmful effects of Climate change that create the circumstances in disenfranchised nations that encourage illegal immigration to the US.